


Helping Hands

by Helicidae



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-26 01:05:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicidae/pseuds/Helicidae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's shoulder isn't better all of the time.  Sometimes it still hurts, to the point of debilitation.  John is good at hiding it; Sherlock only needed a glance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/12826.html?thread=68506906#t68506906
> 
> Perhaps more coming after chapter two, perhaps not.

Atypically, John was not having tea. Nor was he having coffee or beer or even a glass of that cheap supermarket wine, the only other drinks John found suitable as a tea replacements, every now and then, this late in the evening.

He was holding a glass of water with the wrong hand, which was completely atypical, as he slumped down onto the sofa, watching half interested whatever rubbish was currently playing on the TV. Sherlock took this as his cue and snapped the laptop shut to bring it over from where he’d been at the table, writing up spread-sheets on his algae growth data; slumping down next to John, head and shoulders in the other man’s lap, he folded up his legs as a makeshift prop and continued typing.

John made an irritated noise as he rearranged his legs without looking away from the TV, wriggling into a more comfortable position. Sherlock looked up at him. His water glass had a wet base, but the sides were dry.

Sherlock shut his laptop again and let it slide down his knees to the end of the sofa. He twisted for better leverage and then reached up to grab at John’s left shoulder.

“Fuck!” John said, loudly, twisting away with his whole body. About twenty millilitres of water sloshed out of his glass and onto the arm of the sofa. His legs had tensed up as had his abdomen, judging from what Sherlock could feel when putting a hand there to steady himself in the jostling. John shoved Sherlock off of his lap. “Fuck,” he said again, not quite so loud this time but no less sincere.

“You banged your shoulder on the door when coming up the stairs this afternoon,” Sherlock said, rolling over to sit upright on his heels, knees resting heavily on John’s upper leg, pinning it down. “Yet you were perfectly capable of putting away the shopping immediately afterwards.” John wasn’t looking at him, but grimacing and holding his left arm close to his chest. He’d put the glass down. There was a wet patch on his trouser leg where the spilt water had run down the armrest, about five uneven square centimetres.

An unpleasant feeling coiled itself somewhere around Sherlock’s lungs, tight, and he paused, aware of his hands hovering in the space between them, stupid. “Are you alright?” he asked, even more stupidly.

“Damn it, don’t do that,” John snapped, his right hand moving to place over left shoulder - not massaging, not to relieve the pain, but more as if to guard off further investigation. The TV continued to blather on in the background.

“But are you alright?” Sherlock said again before he could stop himself, and dammit, once was bad enough, but twice?

“Yes, I’m fine,” John said, techy but rapidly losing the edge that would tip into actual anger, settling instead into merely irritated. “It’s stiff, that’s all, nothing dramatic.”

“Can I do anything?”

“No,” John said, shortly, but his hand was already being tugged away while long fingers explored the shoulder, pushing and pulling at the bone and muscle, feeling the raised flesh of the scar. John sucked in a breath through gritted teeth at the contact, but didn’t do anything other than clench his right hand around his left, held down firmly in his lap. “Nothing physio could do, anyway. It swells, sometimes - presses against the nerves -”

He hissed again, fingers tightening, jerking as Sherlock attempted to rotate his upper arm around the shoulder. Sherlock looked at his face briefly, noting as John closed his eyes when his elbow was manipulated, extended; then John shut them tighter still, digging long wrinkles into his brow as his whole arm was straightened and lifted to chest height. He was holding his breath.

Sherlock lent back, breaking the contact. John let out a long breath, returning his right hand to left shoulder, curling the left elbow gingerly. “Should be fine,” he said, after a moment. “I took ibuprofen, just need to give it a rest.”

There was a tightness to Sherlock’s throat, an unpleasant ache. He got up without another word, meandered into the kitchen, leaving his laptop behind with John. How much water was needed in the kettle to exactly fill the teapot plus water enough to warm the china? The teapot was how large? One litre plus two hundred millilitres - one thousand, two hundred millilitres, tealeaves a volume of perhaps two cubic centimetres, two millilitres, negligible.

John didn’t use leaves in his tea, not normally. He’d use a teabag - Twinings English Breakfast, unless there was another comparable brand or blend on offer. He’d switch off the kettle before it turned off automatically, presumably a habit learnt from someone who liked good tea, because that was extraordinarily unlikely to affect the taste to an extent where someone like John would be able to tell the difference. He’d put the teabag in the mug - not teacup - before the water and would always leave it to brew, unless he was in a hurry or a bad mood, in which case he’d use a teaspoon to squash it against the side of the mug. He liked it strong but not too strong, with around fifty to seventy millilitres of milk: added straight from the carton after removing the teabag, it would be more brown than pale. Five nanometres and a tone off builder’s tea. No sugar.

Sherlock filled the teapot, watching the water stain dark around the leaves: good quality, Fortnum and Mason; he dug out the strainer from the drawer and the sugar bowl from the back of the cupboard, pouring milk into a jug and setting it all on a tray with two teacups.

John had been watching all the while, of course, on the sofa still holding his arm, but as Sherlock came back into the living room he smiled anyway, wide and tired and a little embarrassed, writing over the pained lines around his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

“He’d been staying in a hotel on Sussex Gardens,” Sherlock said, brisk, as he stepped out onto the street, blinking into the gust of cold, damp air. He held out some paper impatiently, which Lestrade grabbed before it was dropped to the ground. “Hotel owners are the confederates. There’s the address but they’ll have cleared the room by now: nothing left to find, least of all the documents and certainly not by you.”

“No signs of a break in either, then,” Lestrade said dryly, holding back the irritation and fumbling with the paper and his jacket zip as he jogged the few steps to catch up. Sherlock made a caustic sound in the back of his throat, somehow more elegant than a scoff but to the same effect.

“Unlike some people, I don’t need to force an entry to gather the necessary data.” Lestrade snorted but didn’t bother arguing, knowing a losing battle when he saw one. He shoved his hands in his pockets instead and wondered if he could justify getting a cab for the last ten minutes of the journey, if only to get out of the weather and hopefully also Sherlock’s company, currently both unpleasant and both seeming as if they were somehow trying to outdo the other in sheer spitefulness, whether in stinging rain or barbed comments. One hundred fairly miserable yards down the pavement and Sherlock stopped, turning around abruptly with a twirl of that absurd coat of his. Slower, Lestrade turned as well, looking back.

John was still following but he’d dropped behind a fair bit, and he glanced up at the sight of them pausing. His short hair was spiked with the damp and his skin was pale except in the red blotches splashed over his cheeks and nose. He was wearing only his shirt and cardigan, now damp, and his jacket was draped over one arm.

Lestrade felt a stab of remorse. “You alright, mate?” he asked as John caught up. John nodded and smiled in a vaguely reassuring way that was hardly encouraging, strained as it was. He was a good bloke but somehow too easy to overlook, even when grumbling and irritated, though the complaints always came with a good reason. Too easy to take advantage of, if what Sherlock got away with was any indication. He was the sort of person who you’d go to last in an accident, even when it was obvious that he’d broken his leg or arm and all of the others were only frightened, not just because he was so damn good at sinking into the background but because he was the sad sort who rated themselves so lowly that they’d want that.

Maybe that was just relative to his flatmate.

Closer up John looked even worse, drawn and shivering, but Lestrade didn’t get the chance to debate with himself whether to further enquire before he was elbowed aside unceremoniously. He opened his mouth to say something indignant and not entirely professional but was stopped short by the sudden feeling of exclusion: Sherlock had his back firmly towards him and John only had eyes for Sherlock, who had tugged the jacket out of his arms efficiently and was now undoing the buttons.

John’s arm was still held bent at the elbow and pressing into his stomach, his hand still clawed. “Idiot,” Sherlock said, quietly, and gripping the jacket with one hand the other gently prised John’s arm away from his body and slipped it into the sleeve, which he’d rolled up carefully. Sherlock ignored John’s pained hiss, deftly arranging the jacket over his shoulders, then letting go to allow him to slide his other arm in. Sherlock tugged the front and did up the buttons even as he was batted at ineffectively with one hand.

“I can do up my own buttons, you great git,” John was saying, voice colouring over the obligatory irritation with an inordinate amount of fondness. Sherlock only let out a huff of amusement, and finishing the buttons he grabbed at John’s hand, holding it for a second between them - not like shaking hands, but as someone might hold an object. Then he dropped it, turned and without warning started walking again, knocking shoulders with Lestrade none too gently. John grinned a little, stepping to one side to avoid another collision, and hurried to catch up.

Lestrade only sighed in bemusement, smiled wanly at John’s back, and tried not to look too hard for the next empty taxi.


End file.
